Incompatible programs

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

Might it be a good idea to post details of programs proving incompatible
with Windows 10 on the grounds that it may help others to avoid problems?

I installed the latest version (2015.10.0.2206) of Avast! antivirus in
build 9860 yesterday - running in a VM. I ran quick scan, which worked
OK. Then got an odd pop up telling me that rundll32.exe had problems, so
I went to their forum to check the false positive where it was the
general opinion that it was not installable. I opened my big mouth and
said I had just installed it OK and it was running. Shortly thereafter I
was proved totally wrong when all Hell broke loose. Explorer.exe seemed
to have disappeared, error messages popped up all over, and I could not
longer close down Windows 10, nor could I close the VM and get back into
my normal system. I had to force a shutdown with the power switch
(fortunately doing no harm to my Windows 7 system) rerun Windows 10,
download the Avast! removal tool before things seized up, reboot into
safe mode and run it, and finally do a complete system refresh to get
Windows 10 to run again - so much damage had been done, that it was the
only way to fix it.

If you're still with me after all that rambling - the message is don't
try to install Avast!


--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

[philo [_3_]]

On 11/08/2014 05:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
> Might it be a good idea to post details of programs proving incompatible
> with Windows 10 on the grounds that it may help others to avoid problems?
>
> I installed the latest version (2015.10.0.2206) of Avast! antivirus in
> build 9860 yesterday - running in a VM. I ran quick scan, which worked
> OK. Then got an odd pop up telling me that rundll32.exe had problems, so
> I went to their forum to check the false positive where it was the
>

<snip>

The nice thing about using a Virtual Machine is that you can simply make
a copy of the image and experiment all you want. If you break something
you can get back to your original installation in just a minute.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 08/11/2014 1:25 PM, philo wrote:
> On 11/08/2014 05:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>> Might it be a good idea to post details of programs proving incompatible
>> with Windows 10 on the grounds that it may help others to avoid problems?
>>
>> I installed the latest version (2015.10.0.2206) of Avast! antivirus in
>> build 9860 yesterday - running in a VM. I ran quick scan, which worked
>> OK. Then got an odd pop up telling me that rundll32.exe had problems, so
>> I went to their forum to check the false positive where it was the
>>
>
> <snip>
>
> The nice thing about using a Virtual Machine is that you can simply make
> a copy of the image and experiment all you want. If you break something
> you can get back to your original installation in just a minute.
>
>

I hadn't done that - I didn't think I was doing anything that drastic. I
won't get caught again :-(

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 08/11/2014 1:25 PM, philo wrote:
> On 11/08/2014 05:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>> Might it be a good idea to post details of programs proving incompatible
>> with Windows 10 on the grounds that it may help others to avoid problems?
>>
>> I installed the latest version (2015.10.0.2206) of Avast! antivirus in
>> build 9860 yesterday - running in a VM. I ran quick scan, which worked
>> OK. Then got an odd pop up telling me that rundll32.exe had problems, so
>> I went to their forum to check the false positive where it was the
>>
>
> <snip>
>
> The nice thing about using a Virtual Machine is that you can simply make
> a copy of the image and experiment all you want. If you break something
> you can get back to your original installation in just a minute.
>
>

Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
out £160 quid for the paid version.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

[Jeff Gaines[_2_]]

On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
wrote:

>Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>out £160 quid for the paid version.

Bob

How about VirtualBox:
https://www.virtualbox.org/

It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
There are 10 types of people in the world, those who do binary and those
who don't.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
> wrote:
>
>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>
> Bob
>
> How about VirtualBox:
> https://www.virtualbox.org/
>
> It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)
>

I used to use that, Jeff, but I had some problems with a new version
which persistently failed/locked up on here, so I switched to VMware,
which is much better and easier to use. However, the free version is a
cut down version, and doesn't have many of the more complex functions. I
only run test systems on it, so it's no big deal if everything goes
thingies up like Windows 10 did, but a quicker restart would have been
nice in this case.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Yes, a second honeymoon would be a good idea, dear. With whom?

[philo [_3_]]

On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>

Why not just manually make a copy of it ?


How can it not be possible?

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>
>
> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>
>
> How can it not be possible?
>

Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Hypochondria - the only illness a hypochondriac thinks he or she doesn't
have.

[philo [_3_]]

On 11/08/2014 10:40 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
>> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>
>>
>> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>>
>>
>> How can it not be possible?
>>
>
> Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
> from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
> three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
> obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
> 250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.
>



I use Virtual Box


but I think VMware uses the .vhd format

it would be a file of around 15 Gb or more

[Gene E. Bloch[_2_]]

On Sat, 08 Nov 2014 16:40:22 +0000, Bob Henson wrote:

> On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
>> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>
>>
>> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>>
>> How can it not be possible?
>>
>
> Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
> from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
> three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
> obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
> 250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.

It's a bit late for you now, but:

What I've done is make a separate directory for each VM (although at the
moment I only have one active VM). I put them under
Users\(me)\AppData\Roaming\VMware.

So I would copy the whole directory for

Users\(me)\AppData\Roaming\VMware\WindowsXP

(in my case) and hope that VMware isn't hiding necessary stuff
elsewhere.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

[GlowingBlueMist[_6_]]

On 11/8/2014 10:40 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
>> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>
>>
>> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>>
>>
>> How can it not be possible?
>>
>
> Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
> from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
> three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
> obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
> 250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.
>

Hi Bob,
I am running VP Player 6.0.4 build-2249910 and here is how I found where
the files were being stored so I could copy or even move them to another
drive or directory. Possibly I was lucky but all of my virtual machines
get stored in individual folders as I create them. I do have hidden
folders being shown on my system but don't know if that makes a
difference with the following.

1. Start the VMware Player icon so you can bring up the list of
available virtual machines you have already created.

2. Right-click on the virtual machine session you want to copy which
brings up 4 choices on my machine. Power On, Settings..., Remove from
the Library, and Delete from disk. Scroll down to Settings and left
click on that.

3. Now Left-click on the Options tab.

4. You should now see a small Working directory window on the right
middle of the window. That should be the directory where your virtual
machine is stored in. Locate it and just copy the entire directory and
you will now have a duplicate of the existing machine.

Above the Working Directory is the Virtual Machine Name window where you
can change the name of a copy so it shows up as an individual version in
the VMPlayer main menu.

5. To use the new copy, usually after renaming the folder, I start the
VMPlayer from scratch and pick the new folder and click on the .vmx file
or main .vmx if you have multiple ones. Tell the system you copied it
if you are keeping it on the same hardware or moved it if you are going
to try that virtual session with different hardware.

Good luck Bob, hopefully our systems are near enough the same for the
above to work for you.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 09/11/2014 1:45 AM, GlowingBlueMist wrote:
>
> On 11/8/2014 10:40 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
>>> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>>>
>>>
>>> How can it not be possible?
>>>
>>
>> Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
>> from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
>> three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
>> obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
>> 250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.
>>
>
> Hi Bob,
> I am running VP Player 6.0.4 build-2249910 and here is how I found where
> the files were being stored so I could copy or even move them to another
> drive or directory. Possibly I was lucky but all of my virtual machines
> get stored in individual folders as I create them. I do have hidden
> folders being shown on my system but don't know if that makes a
> difference with the following.
>
> 1. Start the VMware Player icon so you can bring up the list of
> available virtual machines you have already created.
>
> 2. Right-click on the virtual machine session you want to copy which
> brings up 4 choices on my machine. Power On, Settings..., Remove from
> the Library, and Delete from disk. Scroll down to Settings and left
> click on that.
>
> 3. Now Left-click on the Options tab.
>
> 4. You should now see a small Working directory window on the right
> middle of the window. That should be the directory where your virtual
> machine is stored in. Locate it and just copy the entire directory and
> you will now have a duplicate of the existing machine.
>
> Above the Working Directory is the Virtual Machine Name window where you
> can change the name of a copy so it shows up as an individual version in
> the VMPlayer main menu.
>
> 5. To use the new copy, usually after renaming the folder, I start the
> VMPlayer from scratch and pick the new folder and click on the .vmx file
> or main .vmx if you have multiple ones. Tell the system you copied it
> if you are keeping it on the same hardware or moved it if you are going
> to try that virtual session with different hardware.
>
> Good luck Bob, hopefully our systems are near enough the same for the
> above to work for you.
>

Thanks for that, and to the other folk that replied. I've saved all the
messages and will print them out and work my way through them later.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

Squirrel - a rat with good PR.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 09/11/2014 1:45 AM, GlowingBlueMist wrote:
>
> On 11/8/2014 10:40 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 3:06 PM, philo wrote:
>>> On 11/08/2014 08:39 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 2:29 PM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Why not just manually make a copy of it ?
>>>
>>>
>>> How can it not be possible?
>>>
>>
>> Which files do I need to copy - there are a lot of them, and it is far
>> from clear which ones I would need to copy to act as a back-up. I have
>> three different operating systems set up within VMware, and it is not
>> obvious which are which, apart from a couple of very small (around
>> 250Kb) files which bear the name of the O/Ss.
>>
>
> Hi Bob,
> I am running VP Player 6.0.4 build-2249910 and here is how I found where
> the files were being stored so I could copy or even move them to another
> drive or directory. Possibly I was lucky but all of my virtual machines
> get stored in individual folders as I create them. I do have hidden
> folders being shown on my system but don't know if that makes a
> difference with the following.
>
> 1. Start the VMware Player icon so you can bring up the list of
> available virtual machines you have already created.
>
> 2. Right-click on the virtual machine session you want to copy which
> brings up 4 choices on my machine. Power On, Settings..., Remove from
> the Library, and Delete from disk. Scroll down to Settings and left
> click on that.
>
> 3. Now Left-click on the Options tab.
>
> 4. You should now see a small Working directory window on the right
> middle of the window. That should be the directory where your virtual
> machine is stored in. Locate it and just copy the entire directory and
> you will now have a duplicate of the existing machine.
>
> Above the Working Directory is the Virtual Machine Name window where you
> can change the name of a copy so it shows up as an individual version in
> the VMPlayer main menu.
>
> 5. To use the new copy, usually after renaming the folder, I start the
> VMPlayer from scratch and pick the new folder and click on the .vmx file
> or main .vmx if you have multiple ones. Tell the system you copied it
> if you are keeping it on the same hardware or moved it if you are going
> to try that virtual session with different hardware.
>
> Good luck Bob, hopefully our systems are near enough the same for the
> above to work for you.
>

That works just fine - I would never have looked in My Documents for the
directories, if you hadn't pointed out the working directory setting.
The first thing I noticed from the three VMs I have is that the two
Linux ones are about 8Gb and the Windows 10 one is 28Gb (with a few
extra programs installed - but not many). Anyway, tomorrow when I have
some (considerable, probably) time I'll .zip them up and store them on
my backup drive.

Thanks again for the help - that will make life considerably easier.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

I went to Waterstones and asked the saleswoman where the "Self Help"
section was. She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose.

[Brian Gregory]

On 08/11/2014 14:29, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
> wrote:
>
>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>
> Bob
>
> How about VirtualBox:
> https://www.virtualbox.org/
>
> It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)
>

Yes I have Windows 10 TP running quite nicely in a VirtualBox 4.3.18 VM.
The guest additions install and work too.
The only odd thing is that I can't get the video display in the Virtual
machine to be any size other than the standard 4:3 sizes 800*600,
1024*768, 1152*864 etc.

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

[Paul]

Bob Henson wrote:

>
> That works just fine - I would never have looked in My Documents for the
> directories, if you hadn't pointed out the working directory setting.
> The first thing I noticed from the three VMs I have is that the two
> Linux ones are about 8Gb and the Windows 10 one is 28Gb (with a few
> extra programs installed - but not many). Anyway, tomorrow when I have
> some (considerable, probably) time I'll .zip them up and store them on
> my backup drive.
>
> Thanks again for the help - that will make life considerably easier.

There are data reclamation procedures you can do on things like
..vhd files to make them smaller. If intending to compress such
a file for long term storage, you might do something like that
as the first step.

Every time a virtual disk does a storage operation, there is
an opportunity to create a non-zero sector in the process.
The .vhd format, doesn't use physical space, for any sector
that contains exactly 512 zeros. Once a sector goes "non-zero",
then a real sector of storage is burned up by the container.

To take advantage of that, you use any tool that creates a file
of zeros. You can't use fsutil for this on NTFS, because it
creates sparse files. You want a utility that physically writes
every sector it says it will write.

dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=C:\downloads\big00.dd bs=65536

When run in the guest, that writes zeros in any available
data clusters, until all the space is gone. The very next
command would be

del C:\downloads\big00.dd

That deletes the file, so the guest won't be complaining
about all the space being gone. Now, all the sectors visited,
contain zeros, and are candidates to be chucked out of the
container.

Now, shut down the VM. The VM hosting software, should
have a tool for working on .vhd or similar images. One
option, is to "re-write" a .vhd. In the process, if the
tool finds a sector which contains 512 bytes of zeros,
the newly created copy of the .vhd, will not have a physical
sector stored on the host disk. So all of the zeroed out
space is reclaimed, with respect to the size of the .vhd
on the host file system.

So for example, say the .vhd in the real world is 40GB,
and inside the host the partitions total 28GB of used
space. By doing the above procedure, when the .vhd is written
out, it will be ~28GB.

For OSes that have pagefiles and hiberfiles, you likely
have further options for "cleaning". Only worthwhile
for long term storage perhaps. You might be able to get
Win10 down to about 14GB or so, with a little work. But
if you're only going to open Win10 tomorrow, fiddling
with the pagefile wouldn't be worth it.

I have a partition that has nothing but VM images on it,
and there is only about 50GB of free space left. And on
occasion, I do a data reclamation on one of the bigger
..vhd files, in order to keep some free space available
on the partition. It's not the kind of thing to make
a fetish out of it, but if a .vhd has gone for a
couple of years without maintenance, it might benefit
from a sprucing up, to make the wasted space smaller.

Once a partition is cleaned that way, and the .vhd
is smaller, you can then compress it for a further
saving. You could do 7Z ultra for example. But that
has a tangible cost - it might cost you a dollar
of electricity, to compress a 1TB hard drive sized image
that way. The compression runtime can be quite long.

Paul

[Paul]

Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 08/11/2014 14:29, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to fork
>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>> How about VirtualBox:
>> https://www.virtualbox.org/
>>
>> It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)
>>
>
> Yes I have Windows 10 TP running quite nicely in a VirtualBox 4.3.18 VM.
> The guest additions install and work too.
> The only odd thing is that I can't get the video display in the Virtual
> machine to be any size other than the standard 4:3 sizes 800*600,
> 1024*768, 1152*864 etc.
>

In the Guest Device Manager, check to see if the Virtualbox driver is
present for the video.

In the Guest machine settings, make sure the frame buffer memory
allocation is big enough. There are also options there to enable
experimental Direct3D support and the like.

The Win10 VESA fallback driver, would do 1024*768 here, so I
recognize the symptoms. Win8 did the same thing. Previous OSes
like WinXP, the fallback driver might do 800x600 or 640x480.
Which is why I'd be checking Device Manager in your Guest, to
see what driver is being used for video.

The fallback driver gets used for my FX5200 card,
since there is no driver from the manufacturer for it.
In the Win10 Preview, a trip to Windows Update revealed
an ATI/AMD driver for my HD6450, which fixed the resolution
issue in a real, physical Win10 Preview installation. So you
should be able to whip that install into shape, one way or another.
There is bound to be a solution.

Paul

[Brian Gregory]

On 09/11/2014 22:27, Paul wrote:
> Brian Gregory wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 14:29, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to
>>>> fork
>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> How about VirtualBox:
>>> https://www.virtualbox.org/
>>>
>>> It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)
>>>
>>
>> Yes I have Windows 10 TP running quite nicely in a VirtualBox 4.3.18 VM.
>> The guest additions install and work too.
>> The only odd thing is that I can't get the video display in the
>> Virtual machine to be any size other than the standard 4:3 sizes
>> 800*600, 1024*768, 1152*864 etc.
>>
>
> In the Guest Device Manager, check to see if the Virtualbox driver is
> present for the video.
>
> In the Guest machine settings, make sure the frame buffer memory
> allocation is big enough. There are also options there to enable
> experimental Direct3D support and the like.
>
> The Win10 VESA fallback driver, would do 1024*768 here, so I
> recognize the symptoms. Win8 did the same thing. Previous OSes
> like WinXP, the fallback driver might do 800x600 or 640x480.
> Which is why I'd be checking Device Manager in your Guest, to
> see what driver is being used for video.
>
> The fallback driver gets used for my FX5200 card,
> since there is no driver from the manufacturer for it.
> In the Win10 Preview, a trip to Windows Update revealed
> an ATI/AMD driver for my HD6450, which fixed the resolution
> issue in a real, physical Win10 Preview installation. So you
> should be able to whip that install into shape, one way or another.
> There is bound to be a solution.
>
> Paul

It's using "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter for Windows 8"

I think that probably when they added support for Win10TP to the guest
additions for VirtualBox 4.3.18 they didn't quite get everything working.

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

[Bob Henson[_2_]]

On 09/11/2014 10:16 PM, Paul wrote:
> Bob Henson wrote:
>
>>
>> That works just fine - I would never have looked in My Documents for the
>> directories, if you hadn't pointed out the working directory setting.
>> The first thing I noticed from the three VMs I have is that the two
>> Linux ones are about 8Gb and the Windows 10 one is 28Gb (with a few
>> extra programs installed - but not many). Anyway, tomorrow when I have
>> some (considerable, probably) time I'll .zip them up and store them on
>> my backup drive.
>>
>> Thanks again for the help - that will make life considerably easier.
>
> There are data reclamation procedures you can do on things like
> .vhd files to make them smaller. If intending to compress such
> a file for long term storage, you might do something like that
> as the first step.
>
> Every time a virtual disk does a storage operation, there is
> an opportunity to create a non-zero sector in the process.
> The .vhd format, doesn't use physical space, for any sector
> that contains exactly 512 zeros. Once a sector goes "non-zero",
> then a real sector of storage is burned up by the container.
>
> To take advantage of that, you use any tool that creates a file
> of zeros. You can't use fsutil for this on NTFS, because it
> creates sparse files. You want a utility that physically writes
> every sector it says it will write.
>
> dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=C:\downloads\big00.dd bs=65536
>
> When run in the guest, that writes zeros in any available
> data clusters, until all the space is gone. The very next
> command would be
>
> del C:\downloads\big00.dd
>
> That deletes the file, so the guest won't be complaining
> about all the space being gone. Now, all the sectors visited,
> contain zeros, and are candidates to be chucked out of the
> container.
>
> Now, shut down the VM. The VM hosting software, should
> have a tool for working on .vhd or similar images. One
> option, is to "re-write" a .vhd. In the process, if the
> tool finds a sector which contains 512 bytes of zeros,
> the newly created copy of the .vhd, will not have a physical
> sector stored on the host disk. So all of the zeroed out
> space is reclaimed, with respect to the size of the .vhd
> on the host file system.
>
> So for example, say the .vhd in the real world is 40GB,
> and inside the host the partitions total 28GB of used
> space. By doing the above procedure, when the .vhd is written
> out, it will be ~28GB.
>
> For OSes that have pagefiles and hiberfiles, you likely
> have further options for "cleaning". Only worthwhile
> for long term storage perhaps. You might be able to get
> Win10 down to about 14GB or so, with a little work. But
> if you're only going to open Win10 tomorrow, fiddling
> with the pagefile wouldn't be worth it.
>
> I have a partition that has nothing but VM images on it,
> and there is only about 50GB of free space left. And on
> occasion, I do a data reclamation on one of the bigger
> .vhd files, in order to keep some free space available
> on the partition. It's not the kind of thing to make
> a fetish out of it, but if a .vhd has gone for a
> couple of years without maintenance, it might benefit
> from a sprucing up, to make the wasted space smaller.
>
> Once a partition is cleaned that way, and the .vhd
> is smaller, you can then compress it for a further
> saving. You could do 7Z ultra for example. But that
> has a tangible cost - it might cost you a dollar
> of electricity, to compress a 1TB hard drive sized image
> that way. The compression runtime can be quite long.
>
> Paul
>

Thanks. I've saved your message again, and I may well have a look those
ideas. For the moment, I only need to save the one VM, so I'll probably
just copy it across to my backup drive uncompressed.

--
Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK

No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery

[Brian Gregory]

On 10/11/2014 01:57, Brian Gregory wrote:
> On 09/11/2014 22:27, Paul wrote:
>> Brian Gregory wrote:
>>> On 08/11/2014 14:29, Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>> On 08/11/2014 in message > Bob Henson
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, it would appear I can't do that with the VM player - I have to
>>>>> fork
>>>>> out £160 quid for the paid version.
>>>>
>>>> Bob
>>>>
>>>> How about VirtualBox:
>>>> https://www.virtualbox.org/
>>>>
>>>> It's a Yorkshireman's favourite price :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes I have Windows 10 TP running quite nicely in a VirtualBox 4.3.18 VM.
>>> The guest additions install and work too.
>>> The only odd thing is that I can't get the video display in the
>>> Virtual machine to be any size other than the standard 4:3 sizes
>>> 800*600, 1024*768, 1152*864 etc.
>>>
>>
>> In the Guest Device Manager, check to see if the Virtualbox driver is
>> present for the video.
>>
>> In the Guest machine settings, make sure the frame buffer memory
>> allocation is big enough. There are also options there to enable
>> experimental Direct3D support and the like.
>>
>> The Win10 VESA fallback driver, would do 1024*768 here, so I
>> recognize the symptoms. Win8 did the same thing. Previous OSes
>> like WinXP, the fallback driver might do 800x600 or 640x480.
>> Which is why I'd be checking Device Manager in your Guest, to
>> see what driver is being used for video.
>>
>> The fallback driver gets used for my FX5200 card,
>> since there is no driver from the manufacturer for it.
>> In the Win10 Preview, a trip to Windows Update revealed
>> an ATI/AMD driver for my HD6450, which fixed the resolution
>> issue in a real, physical Win10 Preview installation. So you
>> should be able to whip that install into shape, one way or another.
>> There is bound to be a solution.
>>
>> Paul
>
> It's using "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter for Windows 8"
>
> I think that probably when they added support for Win10TP to the guest
> additions for VirtualBox 4.3.18 they didn't quite get everything working.
>

I'm now on VirtualBox test build 4.3.19r96825 and everything is working.

It could even be that it was all working in 4.3.18 but I did something
wrong - I had to fiddle with some settings in 4.3.19r96825 before it
came right.

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.